Romero remembered

April 2, 20049:29 AM CST

DALLAS – The weather turned unseasonably cool March 21, but 60 people turned out for a candlelight vigil in front of the Guadalupe Cathedral to commemorate April 24, 1980, the day that Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down by right-wing assassins in El Salvador.

Archbishop Romero delivered his homilies on radio, participants said, and everyone in El Salvador stopped to listen. He had just issued a plea, and then a demand, that the mass killing of innocent civilians by right-wing death squads and the Salvadoran military be stopped. As he delivered his next homily in the national cathedral, a sniper shot him through the open doors.

Three days later, despite warnings, people gathered for his funeral. Many were murdered in the National Plaza. Others, especially young people, were trucked away, never to be seen again.

The Committee for Economic Justice and United Voices for Immigrants sponsored the vigil.